


Turn Away (Enjoy the Silence)

by alder_knight



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Dark, Depeche Mode - Freeform, F/M, Hostage Situations, Interrogation, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 12:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4179669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alder_knight/pseuds/alder_knight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From <a href="http://users.livejournal.com/_beetle_/158118.html">a prompt</a> by <a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://users.livejournal.com/_beetle_/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://users.livejournal.com/_beetle_/">_beetle_</a>: <i>Any pairing, darkish fic, angst is optional. I'd just like it to be inspired by <a href="https://youtu.be/-Zxx3_wOCoU">this song</a>. Something heavy, not especially up-tempo. Protag can get the guy or girl or indeterminate, just no giggling and rah-rah and sunshine. Winning through must taste like ashes, and any victory must be Pyrrhic. I want an ambiguous, iffy, Depeche Mode-y sort of theme and ending.</i></p><p>Captain Kirk finds herself in trouble on an away mission, and when her first officer comes to get her out, they both end up in over their heads.  Can be considered a sequel/same-verse companion to <a href="http://alder-knight.livejournal.com/9793.html">Bitch Slaps & Bra Straps</a>.<br/><br/>Originally posted Nov 18, 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn Away (Enjoy the Silence)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [_beetle_](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=_beetle_).



> **Disclaimer:** Star Trek is not mine, nor do I profit from pretending that it is.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst/darkfic. Scary interrogation scene, with all the uncomfortable shades of nonconsensuality that entails. (No rape.)
> 
>  
> 
> Beta'd by [](http://redcirce.livejournal.com/profile)[**redcirce**](http://redcirce.livejournal.com/) and [](http://ennyousai.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://ennyousai.livejournal.com/)**ennyousai**. Any remaining fuckups are the result of my own obstinacy.

Jane T. Kirk has never been so stressed out in her life.

Yes, she's blown away when they pin the medal on her chest and she relieves now-Admiral Pike to take over captaincy of the _Enterprise_ – seriously, holy fuck, it's like the world finally sees the method inherent in all of her batshit madness, and wants to reward instead of punish.  It's a refreshing change of pace.

The pace of her life is what changes most, though. Suddenly, four hundred and thirty-three lives are her responsibility.  She can barely take care of herself, and now she's taking care of the entire crew of the flagship of the fleet.

Suffice it to say that Kirk's going through a very rapid adjustment to things, practically a culture shock.  She's lucky she's been allowed to keep the crew that rode with her against Nero – her officers are pretty young, sure, but they're Starfleet's best and brightest; not to mention recent defenders of the Earth, their mettle already proven in battle.  
   
She's even luckier to have such a cool-headed first officer to keep her grounded when she starts to slip up.  Never thought she'd say it, but Spock is a lifesaver.  As command starts to trust them with riskier missions, sometimes that's more than just a figure of speech.

 

 

She doesn't remember how she got here, but the first thing Jane Kirk sees when her eyes finally adjust to the darkness is the backlit figure of Spock, outlined in the door of the cave, leaning over the prone form of an unconscious Rholean guard.

Details of her surroundings slowly swim into view as she blinks and tries to sit up, only to find her wrists locked down to the table.  Pain flows back into her consciousness, and she winces at the shallow knife wounds on her arms and torso – she remembers, now, that she was brought here for interrogation.  Their demands had been unoriginal: passwords, codes, names, _now_.  They claimed, of course, that they had ways of making her talk.  Their ways, as it happened, had been both nonlethal and very, very painful.

She flicks a dry tongue uselessly over cracked lips as Spock approaches her table.  "Captain," he says quietly, while deactivating the locking mechanism that holds her, "your captors have fled, and I have incapacitated the guard they left behind.  They appear to be convening in preparation for their rendezvous with the leaders of the insurgency.  What are your orders?"

Kirk winces, and finds herself physically unable to speak.  It is then that the extent of her subtle injuries seems to register on Spock's radar.

"Captain, I -" he begins, uncharacteristically lost for words.  He looks through the dim light at her body, stripped from the waist up and barefoot; covered with seeping, half-cauterized electrode-knife wounds and burns.  They'd even scarred the bottoms of her feet before their comrades had called in the order to muster elsewhere.  Kirk has always known that engaging the enemy might mean periods of captivity, and all cadets have to pass through their Betazoid counselor's Nonconsensual Sexual Trauma workshops, but she had really, really hoped she'd never need to put their coping strategies to use.  She's in the clear, for now, anyway - Rholean anatomy is incompatible with human, and the idea of sexually violating her had apparently not occurred to them.  It had occurred to her.

She wants to tell Spock that she's fine; he needs to get the landing party out of there and have the bridge fire on the insurgents' base from orbit immediately, but the most she can manage are rasping wheezes, and she remembers a crushing three-fingered hand on her throat.  That explains the passing out.

Gritting her teeth, she moves her freed hands, trying to ignore the full-body blaze of pain and sit up, but Spock catches her wrist.  She frowns as he explains, "Captain, in your condition it would be both unwise and illogical to put you in an active combat situation, perhaps even impossible.  I can send for Doctor McCoy and a small medical party, and have them beam back up to the ship with you for treatment of these wounds.  Your injuries appear to be quite extensive, and inflicted deliberately to cause intense pain.  Surely it would be best to relocate you to sickbay before we proceed with further ground operations."  He starts to reach for his communicator, but Kirk switches her hand around so she's now grabbing his wrist instead, ignoring the burns on her palms.  She fixes her eyes on his and slowly, agonizingly, shakes her head left, right, left.

"Captain..."  Spock hesitates.  He reaches out with his free hand.  "Captain, I do not understand. Please allow me to see what it is that you want."

Kirk steels herself against the deja-vu that sweeps her, remembering another cave, another Spock, and nods.  She's avoided mind-melds completely since that one – every captain keeps a few cards up her sleeve, appearances of openness be damned – but it really is their best option right now.  This should only take a few seconds, and she'll be able to relay her orders clearly and efficiently without needing to speak.  
   
She breathes in, the scent of the acrid cave combining with the smells of both their sweat; his fingertips brush her temple, and everything goes jumbled.

A rush of images and sensations flood her, nothing like the ordered precision of last time, and she's having trouble discerning hers from his: the physical pain is her own, mostly, but there's other trauma in here as well, deep and psychological, and it comes from them both.  Spock's specifically looking for Kirk's orders, which should be near the surface, but he's clumsier and less practiced than his alternate self, and it's like flipping at random through file folders scattered across a wrecked office with the chaos her mind has been over these first seven months of captaining the _Enterprise_. He keeps digging while she tries to keep up with the flashing jump-cuts from both their memories.

...Was that Spock's mother, then?  Kirk had never met her, and now – but her face is gone, put neatly back in its own box, away.

Kirk's mind recoils forcefully when her own childhood starts playing like a flip-book, and Spock leaves it alone.  The last thing Kirk wants right now is a reminder of all those shitty years in Iowa, and she's grateful that it doesn't come up again.  The desk of her mind feels a little less cluttered as he finally reaches the present.  As the interrogation plays out, she watches with vague, detached horror.  A grim sense of righteous disgust, not hers in origin, suddenly echoes through her thought-chambers.  Its intensity is staggering.  Kirk had not expected such strong sentiment from her first officer, even given the Rholean insurgents' brutality – not on her behalf, certainly.

A word rings out: _Captain_.  Spock is speaking to her inside of her mind.  
   
All of the images drop away.  He fills her entire consciousness.  She scrambles to reply, struggling with the shift from images to words.

_...Spock?_

_Captain, we haven't much time - what are your orders?_

Kirk decides, given the medium, it is better to show than tell.

She thinks about her crew, their sacrifice and dedication, their honor and loyalty, and thinks about her own responsibilities, and their lives against her own, and knows she will always choose their needs and safety before hers.  Now Spock knows, too.

_Captain, I..._

Kirk lets her fears slip through, lets Spock see the terror below her stoicism at the hands of the enemy, shows him exactly the kind of dread she's trying to spare her people.  It was the immobilization, really, that had been the worst, not the torture – this was an enemy that wanted power, control, and was willing to take it by any means necessary.  _Beam everyone the hell out of here_ , that's the gist of what she's trying to convey, _and snipe the bastards who've been terrorizing this planet, diplomacy be damned_.  She doesn't have much control over the meld, but Spock is listening, and she lets him feel some of that foreboding, that fear.  
   
Spock seems to linger on the image of the Rholean interrogator's hand on Kirk's throat, emanating chagrin as it swirls into memories from the first altercation on the bridge where acting-captain Spock had nearly choked the life from a certain unruly, antagonizing cadet.  Kirk lets Spock know that he's forgiven; she deliberately provoked him, after all, and if anything is sorry herself for having salted his fresh wounds.  The guilt of it seems to subside in Spock, and Kirk's own emotions at the time of their fight before the Narada Iincident remain mercifully off to the side.  
   
Then something else comes up, something unbidden – she is seeing Spock again as she saw him minutes ago, outlined in the cave opening, and the relief that flooded her then floods them both now, but it is tinged with something else, something half-doting and embarrassing, a wistful sort of affection that makes Kirk want to kick herself.  She is certain Spock gets hit with her surge of frustration then: appearing before her first officer exposed and immobile is bad enough without inappropriate emotions surfacing as well.  
   
The meld seems to draw in on itself, becoming strangely, uncomfortably more intimate, as Kirk gets hit with a second wave of something akin to humiliated infatuation.  A moment passes before she realizes it isn't hers.  
   
To her shock, and evidently his as well, Spock's duty-bound loyalty has been covering something else, a loyal warmth he has come to harbor towards her,  admiration and affection usually hidden by his chilly, professional demeanor.  Well, shit.  
   
An empathetic feedback loop of climactic intensity threatens to build between them.

Kirk focuses: _**Now** , Spock_.  He breaks the meld.

Each of them stares at the other for a moment, breathing hard, faces very close together, and then both quickly turn away to compose themselves.  Kirk studiously examines the burns on her wrists while Spock flips open his communicator.

"Spock to Enterprise.  Beam up landing party immediately.  The captain is in my custody - prepare to beam us up in the next wave.  Spock out."

Gently as possible, though they both know Kirk's lucky she's got such a high pain tolerance, Spock hoists her up into a fireman's carry, throwing the tattered remains of her shirt around her neck like a backwards cape in a token show of modesty (it may be a great morale-raiser someday, but Kirk's pretty sure beaming back up with her tits uncovered is probably not the best plan right now).

Once aboard, Kirk is rushed to sickbay and Spock, armed with the insurgency base coordinates gleaned from Kirk's memory, orders weapons locked on rendez-vous point and fired.  Two more sites are hit, the enemy is neutralized, and the planet and Federation are freed from one of the greatest scourges of this quadrant of the galaxy.  The _Enterprise_ reports no casualties, nor do the Rholean civilians.  Kirk is not present for the communications from Starfleet command or the planetside civilian councils, but they send her their gratitude and praise.

Neither Kirk nor Spock speak of their mental congress on Rholos.  The meld is private, as are the contents it divulges.  The shared secret seems to drive a wedge between them.  
   
For the best, Kirk thinks detachedly: the ship and its mission are far more important than the personal lives of its captain and first officer.  Their professional relationship is too vital to gamble on the indulgence of petty personal whims.  
   
Spock carefully delivers Kirk into Bones's care upon beaming up, and does not look at her again.

 

The sedatives finally kick in as the captain reclines in sick bay, alone, and tries to enjoy the silence.

**Author's Note:**

>   * The "cluttered office desk" is anachronistic, entirely. I know. My betas pointed it out, and then I floundered and obsessed over the analogy for like three months and used it as an excuse not to finish and post this damn fic, so to hell with it, I've kept it in.  
> 
>   * I think Depeche Mode is a very November band, so I am okay with this fic going up now, time-wise. I wish I hadn't taken so long with it.  
> 
>   * Angst and darkfic are not my usual strong suits, so any detailed feedback or constructive criticism (really! I am not just saying this!) would be helpful and appreciated.  
> 
> 



End file.
